


Little Sea Globes

by YoYoHa



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Blowjobs, Daichi has a bit of a gay crisis, Fluff, Intercrural Sex, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mermaid Magic, Mermaid isn't gender specific here, Mermaid!Sugawara, Mermaids, Playing loose-y goose-y with lots of lore, Policeman!Daichi, Rated E for later chapters, Smut, Telepathic Bond, Telepathic Communication
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:34:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23351044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoYoHa/pseuds/YoYoHa
Summary: On patrol late in the evening in his small town, Daichi spots a person washed up on the beach, but it isn't a person at all."Sugawara Koushi": the human name given to an inexplicable being escaping the terror of a Sea Witch.Daichi must figure out what he needs to do in order to help the mermaid, and help Japan once torrential rains begin pouring from the heavens.--------------------Mermaid AU. Mermaid!Sugawara and Policeman!Daichi
Relationships: Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Am I starting a new story when I have hella WIPs???? You betcha!!! Luckily, this one is mostly finished.

He flew through the water like a knife, his glittering, powerful tail propelling him forward as he swam for his life. Around his neck, a pink pearl pendant hung on a chain. 

The shore, if he could just make it to the shore. 

Behind him, the ocean darkened, as if sinking deep within her trenches. Black tendrils curling closer and closer to him. The black threatened to tear him apart, and with all its power, beckoned to the fleeing creature. 

Looking below him, he noticed the ocean floor getting closer, which meant that the shore was only moments away. If he could just make it there…

On his wrist he felt a burning, searing sensation, but he didn’t stop, knowing he was so close to freedom. The feeling licked at his fins, cascading across his tail, and with the last of his strength, he crested the water and rolled uselessly onto the sand. 

Away from the water’s reach, he was safe, for now, and he coughed and sputtered as his gills flicked, uselessly trying to take in oxygen from the water. He took a deep breath, filling his rarely used lungs, and he collapsed on the sand. 

“Hey! Are you alright?” a distant voice called, but he was tired and hurt, and felt his consciousness wane as a human approached him.

***

Daichi liked to consider himself a well-adjusted individual.

He liked schedules, he was good at planning, and when he needed to relax, he was able to cut loose. Above all, he valued a strong and sturdy lifestyle, with a little flexibility.  
Flexibility that was reserved for the occasional date with Michimiya, or changing shifts at the station. 

He did well for himself in this small town as a police officer, and his gravitation towards a more strict regime helped him in his career. He had a small home, with a kind neighbor, and a dog, so he would say that life was good. 

Life was stable. 

He had not been expecting his life to get turned around because of his evening beach patrol. 

When he heard someone coughing, as if they had been nearly drowned, he picked up his pace and walked closer to the sound. 

“Hey! Are you alright?” he asked, shining his flashlight towards the person lying by the water’s edge. He was going to tell them that there was no swimming at this hour, but one good look at the person and he dropped his flashlight. 

“Person” was not the right word.

Some creature was lying on the beach. Humanoid in appearance from the waist up, but even then, just barely. Its skin was tinted pink, with long slender arms adorned with limp fins. Wet, ashen hair framed its face, and where legs would be, there was a long, pink tail, glittering in the moonlight. Gills on its sides shuddered uselessly before closing to slits on the creature’s ribcage. 

“What the hell?” Daichi breathed, inspecting the creature closer. It didn’t move and Daichi ran through millions of ways to rationalize this in his brain. 

“This is cosplay,” he muttered, saying it aloud as a way to make himself believe it. “This is some crazy cosplay.”

Crouching down, he planned to check and see if this “person” was still breathing before calling it in, and the creature gasped, grabbing his wrist desperately. 

“Hey-“ Daichi started, but then words began forming in his mind. 

_”Help me,”_ it sang, and the voice was gentle and soothing. Calm, like waves lapping against the corners of his mind. It calmed his emotions, despite the dim rational thought warning him in the back of his head like distant alarms. 

“How can I help?” Daichi asked. 

_”Take me….away from the ocean”_

Daichi scooped up the creature that sighed and let itself go limp in his arms, and began to walk towards his house. 

As he walked, the lulling voice’s effects began to wear off, and Daichi began to rationalize again. 

1\. This was definitely not just a person in cosplay

2\. There was some sort of magic or telepathy going on that was letting them communicate

3\. Daichi was now carrying this strange creature back to his house

He should definitely call something like this in to the station. Not that they would know what to do with it, but a group effort would be better than Daichi working on this by himself. He was breaking all sorts of protocol by bringing this stranger into his house, but looking down at it, Daichi couldn’t help but marvel at the creature in his arms. 

The creature was smaller and lithe, and its skin was smooth. Up close, Daichi could see gossamer webbing between its fingers. And there was a necklace- a thin, silver chain which held only a pendant of a pink pearl.

By the time he got home, the haze on his mind was gone, and his clothes were effectively soaked. 

His dog, when he pushed open the door, greeted him excitedly, raising up on her back two paws to sniff at the creature in Daichi’s arms. 

“Down, Emiko,” he said sternly, carrying the creature to the bathroom. Emiko followed him in, sniffing at the pink tail. 

Daichi put it in the bath tub, and once he was unburdened by the weight of the creature, he groaned. He sat on the lid of his toilet and put his head in his hands. 

“What are you doing, Daichi?” he asked himself, and Emiko licked his face. 

He shooed her away for now, and began running through scenarios in his head. 

**1\. He reports this creature to the station and as a group they figure out how to deal with it.**

That would lead to the calling in of more experts like Michimiya and Bokuto and probably the confiscation of the creature as a science experiment. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing, but Daichi couldn’t begin to imagine how traumatizing that would be. As much as he didn’t want to deal with whatever this was, he couldn’t justify causing harm to another creature like that.

**2\. He throws the creature back into the ocean**

The pink being was fleeing the ocean, was fleeing _something_ , and told Daichi to get it away from the water. Needless to say, there was something dangerous lurking under the salty depths. 

**3\. He just harbors an unknown creature in his bathtub for an undetermined amount of time in secret.**

Daichi groaned. 

He templed his fingers and stared intently at the creature in his bath tub. Daichi had, like many others, grew up with whimsical tails of mermaids and sea witch’s, but never would he think an aquatic mythical creature would find its way on to his doorstep. He didn’t even think they were real!

The creature stayed motionless, the gentle rising and falling of its chest the only indication that it was alive. 

Daichi stood, checking his watch and seeing it was past time for him to clock out for his shift. He decided he would just do it tomorrow, and walked to the other room to feed his dog. 

She was a bit of a mutt, with dark grey fur and a black splotchy pattern on her body. Her belly was white along with the tips of her feet and tail. 

He pulled a cup of food from the large bin that held her food, and poured it into her bowl, also taking her water bowl to fill it with water as well. 

After tending to his dog, he walked back to the bathroom, where the creature was still lying motionless. 

“I guess it’s a mermaid,” he said to himself, inspecting its half-human(ish) and half-fish form. 

Daichi resigned himself to watch it all night, just in case something happened, and he began to doze off after a while, leaning his chin into the palm of his hand and letting his eyelids slide closed. 

It only felt as if he drifted off for a moment when he felt breath on his face. 

“Emiko, go,” he mumbled, pushing what he thought was his dog out of the way, but when his hand connected with cold, clammy flesh, he gasped, withdrawing his hands. 

The mermaid had leaned over the side of the tub and was inspecting him. 

“Holy shit, do you have to be that close?” Daichi asked and the mermaid flopped back in to the tub, squinting its eyes at him when it did so. 

Looking closely, Daichi could see that the mermaid’s eyes were a bit flat, and reflective, like a fish’s, and wondered with a demented amusement if the mermaid was near-sighted.  
Its pink tail flicked, slapping against the ceramic of the tub, and the mermaid wiggled. 

“What do you want? Out?”

At the sound of his voice, Emiko came rushing into the bathroom, tail wagging. The mermaid recoiled and hissed at his dog, fins from the side of its face flaring up to make the mermaid look like some kind of frilled lizard. 

“Woah, woah, calm down, it’s just a dog,” Daichi said, patting her on the head. “Sit,” he commanded, and the dog’s butt went to the floor. 

That seemed to calm the mermaid down, but it didn’t look too pleased with the animal in the tiny confines of this room. Next, the creature tried to hoist itself up from the tub, and huffed indignantly when it fell back uselessly. 

“So you do want out?”

At the word “out”, Emiko stood up, wagging her tail wildly. 

“Not you, ‘out’, go,” Daichi said, pointing out of the bathroom, and she left obediently, sitting at the entrance to the bathroom. Daichi closed the door to keep her from interrupting again. 

The mermaid grabbed his revealed wrist, and the same wispy voice called inside his mind. 

_”I need water”_

Daichi ripped his arm away and rubbed at his wrist where the mermaid touched him. The second time he experienced it, his brain didn’t get hazy like before. 

“How are you doing that? And didn’t you tell me to take you away from the ocean?”

The mermaid held its webbed hand out insistently, and Daichi tentatively placed his hand in it. 

_“No ocean. But I do need water.”_

Well, Daichi could fix that easily. He reached over to the faucet and turned them, and as the water came out, the mermaid jumped, until it realized just what was happening and smiled, sharp teeth revealed for Daichi to see. 

This monster was dangerous. 

But as the tub filled up, its fins fluttered with what Daichi could only assume was glee, and he just watched as it rinsed itself. What his eye was not keen enough to notice was the way the mermaid’s wounded arm and tail stitched themselves back together with the water. 

After a while of watching the mermaid bathe, Daichi figured it was time for some questions. 

“Alright, since you’re here for now I have a couple of things I need to ask you,” Daichi started, and the fins on the side of the mermaid’s face perked up. He kind of looked like an axolotl. 

“What’s your name?” he asked and the creature opened it’s mouth an a high-pitched click came from it before a low, hollowed moan.

“Those sounds are your name?” he asked for clarification, and the mermaid just blinked owlishly at him. 

“Can you talk?” he asked, and the mermaid grabbed his hand. 

_“For right now, I can only communicate like this.”_

“How do I change that?”

The mermaid grinned. 

_”Give me some blood.”_

Daichi yanked his hand away from the mermaid and clicking noises came from his throat as his facial fins vibrated. He was laughing. 

“I’m not going to give you my blood,” Daichi said resolutely, and the mermaid flicked some water on him from the bath, rolling over so that its back was to him. “Don’t ignore me!”  
The mermaid held up a hand, as if asking for something, and Daichi scoffed. 

“You’re a cheeky bastard, aren’t you?” Daichi grumbled, crossing his arms and settling on the toilet seat. “Why do you need my blood?”

The mermaid reached out to grab his hand. 

_”I can transform into a creature as long as it’s a close relative of mine and I can ingest some DNA”_

“And by close relative you mean…?”

_”Humans or fish. Or most sea creatures really. But only when I choose to transform.”_

Interesting. 

“So if I give you my blood, you’ll transform into a human and then I can talk to you normally?”

 _”Something like that,”_ the mermaid said, a grin still on its face. Daichi sighed, and reached into his pocket to pull out his pocket knife, pricking his finger with the tip. 

“Here, but that’s all you get,” he said, holding his finger to the mermaid’s mouth. Eagerly, it took the digit between it’s lips and lapped at the drop of blood. Instantly scales began to fall off its lower half as it expanded. Fins flattened and dissolved into the skin on the mermaid’s arms, and the magnificent tail turned into scales which dissolved to water, leaving human legs and another interesting appendage. 

“You’re a guy?!” Daichi exclaimed, and the man opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His eyebrows furrowed as he tried again, and looking panicked he turned to Daichi. 

“Don’t look at me! What can I do?” he asked, embarrassedly averting his gaze as to not look at the other exposed. The stranger’s hand gripped his and he heard that soothing voice in his mind again. 

_”It didn’t work. I think I need more blood.”_

“Well, you’re not getting any more from me. For all I know you could be some blood-sucking water vampire,” Daichi exclaimed, a little overwhelmed at the situation of now having a naked man in his bathroom. 

The ashen haired man pouted and flopped back into the bath water. 

“And put some damn clothes on!”

***

After watching the once-merman(?)-now-human learn to walk on his two legs, Daichi led him to his bedroom to get him dressed in clothes. Of course everything he had was too big on the other, so his clothes just hung loosely off of the man’s lithe form.

“We’ll have to go into town to buy some clothes,” Daichi sighed, and Emiko wandered in, tail wagging. The man took steps to hide behind Daichi, growling pitifully at the dog. 

“Oh, stop that, she’s nice, hold out your hand,” Daichi said, and the other looked at him with trepidation for a moment before holding out his hand as instructed. 

Emiko came and sniffed at his palm before licking it. 

“See? Good dog.”

The ashen-haired man smiled and gave Emiko a pat on her head. 

“Now, let’s head into town and find some clothes that actually fit you,” Daichi said, taking the man’s wrist and leading him out the front door. 

Daichi made sure he had his phone, wallet, and keys before locking his house, and lead the man down the dirt street to where the main strip was. They only had a grocery store which doubled as a restaurant, a gas station, a home improvement store, and a mom and pop boutique that sold clothes, kitchenware, appliances, and basically anything else someone would need in a small town like this. 

“Good morning, Daichi,” one of the town residents, and Daichi’s co-workers, greeted. “I noticed you didn’t clock out last night.”

Daichi feigned ignorance. 

“Ah, silly me, I must have just forgot in my rush to get home,” he said, and she looked beside Daichi, to the man who was standing there. 

“And who’s this?”

It had suddenly dawned on Daichi that this man did not have a name. 

Well, he did, but random clicking and singing sounds didn’t constitute a name here. 

“Uh, it’s, uh,” he said, looking around for any sort of inspiration. At the home improvement store, he saw a sign for the seasonal sedge grass they were selling. 

“Suga……wa..Sugawara, um. Kou…no…Koushi! Sugawara Koushi. I met him on the uh…..internet?”

He could tell his co-worker Ayane wasn’t buying it for a second, but she just raised a skeptical eyebrow. 

“Riiight,” she said. 

“He usually goes by a different name. You know, on the internet,” Daichi said sheepishly, hoping it would help make a more convincing lie. They stood there in silence for a while.

“He doesn’t talk much,” she noticed. 

“Ah, yes, well, he’s one of those reclusive types,” Daichi supplied, and she looked to the man, who was standing and smiling at her. 

“Well, okay, make sure to clock out next time or the boss will have your head,” she said and Daichi thanked her.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, once she had turned a corner. 

_”Sugawara Koushi? I like this name,”_ the man- Sugawara, said, resting his hand on Daichi’s elbow. 

“I named you after grass,” Daichi said, still in a bit of shock and disbelief at the moment. “I saw grass and I said ‘suga’ like an idiot.”

Sugawara just walked on ahead, leaving Daichi in the street. When Daichi realized he was standing by himself, he jogged to keep up with the other. 

Sugawara saw simple sundresses at the shop and his face lit up with excitement, grabbing one and holding it up. 

Daichi snatched it in embarrassment and put it back on the rack, looking around to see if anyone noticed.

“You can’t wear that! You have to wear guy clothes,” he hissed, and Sugawara crossed his arms and huffed. 

He would be the death of Daichi. 

There were t-shirts and swim shorts for sale that looked to be about Sugawara’s size, so Daichi purchased them, along with some sandals for the other to wear. This would last them until they could at least order some clothes online. 

Walking back home wasn’t nearly as eventful as walking to the store. 

Sugawara plopped down on the couch when they got back to the house, and when Emiko came up and sniffed him, he gave her a tentative pat on the head. 

“We can order you some more clothes online, but until then, these will have to do,” Daichi said, handing him the clothes they just purchased. 

Sugawara slid out of the over-sized pants and Daichi clapped a hand over his eyes. 

“Go change in the bathroom!” he exclaimed, and Sugawara smiled at his reaction. Nevertheless, he took the clothes and spent much too long figuring out how to put them on by himself in the bathroom. When he came out, his shirt was on backwards, but that was an east fix and Daichi pulled it off of him and put it back on. 

As he was changing Sugawara, he noticed that his transformation into a human wasn’t perfect. There were still slits in his skin from where his gills laid flat, and pink pseudo-scales formed around them and his elbows. 

Sugawara looked down at his clothes and sighed, and then looked back to Daichi expectantly.

“What?”

Sugawara took his hand between both of his own. 

_”What should we do now?”_

“Cook breakfast? Find you more clothes? Figure out what to actually _do_ with you?” Daichi pondered. “What are you even here to do?”

 _”I needed to become human,”_ he said. 

“Well, go ahead and check that one off the list. Now what?”

Sugawara shrugged, going to sit back on the couch. 

“Well, while you think of that, I’m going to make us something to eat,” Daichi sighed, going into his kitchen to check what he could make for breakfast. He had some packages of natto, and miso soup mix, and along with some rice, he figured that would suffice. 

See, Daichi wasn’t much of a cook, so he had to do what he could to get by. 

Breakfast didn’t take very long to prepare, and he set the table for the two of them. 

“Sugawara, come eat,” he said, and the once-merman walked to the table. Looking at the food, he only waited a moment before grabbing things with his bare hands and sticking them in his mouth. 

“Suga, no!” Daichi said, and Sugawara looked at him quizzically. “You have to use eating utensils. Like chopsticks.”

Sugawara blinked at him and looked down, picking up the chopsticks before stabbing his food with it. 

“No, you have to do it like this,” Daichi said, before spending the next 20 minutes teaching Sugawara how to hold and use chopsticks, which only ended in Sugawara getting fed up and throwing them to the ground. 

Daichi stared at him sternly for a moment, but Sugawara just crossed his arms and stared back. 

Usually that worked for most people. But then again, Sugawara wasn’t like most people. 

“Fine. You can just use the spoon.”

And with the spoon Sugawara happily ate all of his breakfast. 

Daichi would try the chopsticks another time. 

After breakfast, he pulled out his laptop and started searching online for clothes for Sugawara. On the couch, Sugawara sat incredibly close, looking over his shoulder. 

_”This one!”_ Sugawara said, pointing to a floral wrap dress from one of the ads. 

“That’s a dress, Sugawara, you can’t wear that,” Daichi sighed.

_”But I like it, so why not?”_

“Because you’re a guy, so you have to wear guy clothes,” Daichi explained, and Sugawara crossed his arms. 

_”Well, whoever made that rule is stupid,”_ Sugawara said, and Daichi clicked through a few more options. 

“What about this? It’s kind of similar.”

He pointed to a dark blue paisley button-down. Sugawara inspected it for a moment before shrugging. Then, he leaned his head on Daichi’s arm. 

“Don’t do that,” Daichi said, moving away from Sugawara. 

_”Why?”_ he asked, scooting closer to Daichi on the couch. 

“Because guys don’t do stuff like that together,” Daichi said. 

_”Says who?”_ Sugawara argued.

“Says, like, everyone,” Daichi sighed, exasperated. 

So Sugawara sat with a reasonable distance between him and Daichi on the couch, occasionally offering his input on outfits. Emiko came over and hopped up on the couch as well, resting her head in Sugawara’s lap, much to the men’s surprise. 

Once Daichi was finished ordering clothes, he closed his laptop with a sigh. 

“Once the clothes get here, you should be good to go, but for now you’re just going to have to make do with what we have here,” Daichi said, and Sugawara stared at him. “Do you understand?” 

Sugawara continued to stare. 

“Nod if you understand,” Daichi said, and Sugawara cocked his head to the side. Daichi didn’t know what Sugawara found so confusing about his request, but he just gave up. 

When he stood up, Sugawara stood up too, and Daichi resigned himself to just having a shadow for however long Sugawara was sticking around for. He went to get Emiko ready to go on a walk, and while he did, he figured he’d ask Sugawara more questions. 

“So, why did you leave the ocean?” Daichi asked, and he felt Sugawara’s hand brush the nape of his neck. 

_”I wanted my freedom.”_

He would never get used to that voice, and how it ebbed and flowed like the waves in his mind. Daichi shivered at it and the touch Sugawara used to deliver his message, he brushed the other’s hand away from his neck. 

“Freedom from whom?” Daichi asked snapping the leash onto Emiko’s collar. They exited the house and Sugawara looked towards the ocean. Grabbing Daichi’s hand in his own, he shared his reply. 

_”The sea witch.”_

Daichi thought that sounded pretty ominous, and shook his hand free of Sugawara’s, especially now that they were outside. 

“Sawamura, hey!” his neighbor, Bokuto Koutarou, greeted. 

Daichi smiled and waved at him. 

“Oh? Who’s this?” Bokuto asked, leaning against the fence that separated their two homes. 

“This is Sugawara Koushi. My friend from the internet,” Daichi said, making sure to keep his story consistent. 

“You didn’t tell me you had such good-looking friends,” Bokuto said slyly, and Daichi just laughed. 

He was about 98% Bokuto was gay. Which wasn’t a problem. He didn’t hit on Daichi or anything, and even if he did, Daichi would just respectfully decline, but it would be problematic if Sugawara was Bokuto’s type. Considering that he was a mythical creature that technically shouldn’t exist. 

“Well, don’t let me hold you up,” Bokuto said when the conversation fell flat. “See you later!”

Their walk around the block with Emiko was silent, and Daichi made sure to be a diligent citizen and clean up after her. Sugawara just crinkled his nose. 

They returned home, and Daichi said there was some work he needed to get done, so Sugawara would need to let him be for a while, before he sat on the couch with his laptop.  
Sugawara, bored and listless, laid down on the floor with the dog, and began playing with her, cuddling her and rubbing her belly. When he got bored with that he went to sit by Daichi, moving in close before thinking better of it and just staring at him. 

“What?” 

Sugawara just shrugged and rested his head on the back of the couch so that he could still look at Daichi. 

The way Sugawara looked at him was a bit unnerving. It was unabashed, as if Sugawara was trying to take in every last detail, but Daichi just tried to ignore it. 

By time he finished his work, it was past time for lunch. 

Deciding that he didn’t want to attempt to throw something together, he and Sugawara walked together to the grocery store to get bentos, and at home, Sugawara ate with a fork.  
Distantly, Daichi felt like he was forgetting something, when he heard a knock at his door. When he answered it, he saw Michimiya on the other side, a dissatisfied expression, and her hands on her hips. 

Right, lunch with Michimiya.

“Sawamura, did you forget our date?” she asked irritated.

“Sorry, Michimiya, a lot’s been going on in the past few days. Rain check?” he said hopefully, and the woman looked at him before sighing, the tension seeming to leave her body.

“You’re lucky you’re cute, Sawamura,” she said, and Daichi smiled. 

Michimiya Yui, like Bokuto Koutarou, was a marine researcher from a college out of town. They were finishing up their graduate theses together, and Michimiya and Daichi were dating. 

Sugawara, curious about the conversation, walked up behind Daichi to see who the new person was. 

“Oh, hello,” Michimiya said with surprise. “Who are you?”

Daichi took a reluctant step to the side. 

“This is Sugawara Koushi,” Daichi said, introducing them. “Sugawara, this is Michimiya Yui.”

Sugawara just stared at her when she bowed. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said, and Sugawara, confused, bowed as well. 

They stood there in an awkward silence before Michimiya cleared her throat. 

“So, Sugawara, how do you know Daichi?” she asked, and Sugawara reached out to her, before Daichi grabbed his hand. He realized that Sugawara was trying to do that telepathic communication with Michimiya, but that would be bad on so many levels. 

“Internet,” Daichi responded hastily, and Sugawara furrowed his eyebrows at him. From where their hands were connected, Sugawara sent a message. 

_”I was going to say that.”_

Michimiya leaned into Daichi’s space a little, covering her mouth. 

“Does he not speak Japanese?” she whispered. 

“Nope! Not a lick. He’s from…..uh….America,” Daichi said, and Michimya hummed. 

“Explains why he’s so odd,” she said and Sugawara furrowed his brow. 

“Yeah, he’s staying with me for a while, so please take care of him,” Daichi said, bowing, and Sugawara mimicked him, bowing as well. 

Michimiya giggled. 

“Of course, Sawamura. As long as you don’t miss any more of our dates,” she said, and Daichi smiled. 

“I won’t.”

Michimiya waved goodbye to the two of them and Daichi closed the door. He then groaned, rubbing his hands over his face. 

“Sugawara! You can’t just do that weird telepathy touch thing with everybody,” he scolded. 

_”Is this another one of those strange human rules?”_ Sugawara asked, touching Daichi’s hand. 

Daichi would really have to figure out a way to get this man to start speaking some actual words, because it was making him a tad uncomfortable with how the simple touch made his skin feel as if it were on fire. 

“If people find out you’re different, they’ll take you away and experiment on you with horrible needles and other poking objects,” Daichi explained. “So you can’t use your mind talking on anyone but me.”

Sugawara looked down at his hands a bit forlornly. 

“What’s the matter?” Daichi asked, and Sugawara touched the crook of his elbow. 

_“You’re the only person in the whole world I can talk to then.”_

The sentence was sad, and Daichi could see that Sugawara looked a bit upset. He would probably feel upset too if there was only one person in the whole world he could talk to.

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure out a way to make your voice work, and until then, I’ll talk to you as much as you want,” Daichi said, and Sugawara beamed, throwing his arms around Daichi and hugging him, and if that didn’t send Daichi’s head reeling, nothing else today did. 

Granted, it _had_ been a crazy day. 

That night, he set Sugawara up on the couch with a blanket and some pillows and wished him a good night. However, that morning he woke up to a full bed. 

Emiko was sleeping with her head buried in the crook of his neck, and Sugawara had crawled into his bed and wrapped his arms around his torso. Daichi startled, heart racing at how close the other man was, and he groaned when he saw a pink tail instead of legs.

“Fuck.”


	2. Chapter 2

Feeding Sugawara drops of blood seemed to be enough to keep him mostly human for a day, before he would shift back into his merfolk form at night. It only took a week of this, and Sugawara sneaking into Daichi’s bed, before Daichi was fed up with his house guest. 

They took the train to the next largest town with a library, and the whole commute Daichi ignored Sugawara. Picking up on his feelings, Sugawara remained calm, only occasionally dragging Daichi’s attention to something interesting he saw. 

At the library, Daichi hoped to find some fisherman’s tale or something to see if he could make Sugawara a normal human. Luckily, this was the perfect place for Sugawara as he could be as silent as he needed. 

There were only two other people in the library, and only one of them really looked like he belonged there. He was an older man with mussed black hair and glasses, and the man with him had dyed blond hair pulled back with a hand band. 

Daichi ignored them as he began pulling books off the shelf that might be useful. Sugawara followed him around, and after a while he put his hand on Daichi’s. 

_“Talk to me,”_ he said, and Daichi sighed. 

“I can’t,” he whispered, “we’re in a library. We’re supposed to keep our voices down.”

_”Is this another human rule?”_ Sugawara asked and Daichi nodded. Sugawara furrowed his eyebrows and asked again. 

“I said yes,” Daichi whispered, earning a hush from the librarian. 

_”Is that what that bobbing of your head means? ‘Yes’?”_ Sugawara asked and Daichi nodded. 

Sugawara tested it out before pursing his lips. 

When Daichi had as many books as he could carry, he walked to the other free table with Sugawara, and began looking through them. 

There were books about fairytales of Western mermaids, the one Daichi was surprisingly more familiar with due to their popularity. The stories told of beautiful maidens who would pull sailors to their death. Most of all, Daichi finds himself fascinated by the Hans Christain Andersen, and the telling of a beautiful mermaid who longs to become human and loses her voice to do so. 

He looks to Sugawara, wondering if his predicament is the same. 

However, he worried about the “falling in love with a prince” part. And also the fact that the Little Mermaid at the end of the story is faced with the choice of spilling the prince’s blood over her feet in order to transform back into a mermaid. 

He closed that book and chose to move onto Japanese folklore. 

He found books with passages on _ningyo_ , a human and fish like creature, and dimly recalls hearing stories about them as a child. Living in a coastal town, he’d heard the stories and the word thrown about, but had gotten hazy on the details. 

There wasn’t much written about them, only the story of Yao Bikuni, which Daichi could barely remember from maybe a Japanese literature or History class. 

He read about the fisherman who caught a _ningyo_ and wanted to share the meat from the strange fish with his friends. When one of friends saw the fish had the head of a human, he warned the others not to eat of the fish. When the fish was served, all of the friends were too scared to indulge in the meat, so they hid it in napkins so they could get rid of it on their way home. One of the friends had too much sake to drink, however, and forgot to discard of the fish. When he returned home, his daughter asked for a present, and thoughtlessly, he gave her the fish. When he remembered what his friend had warned about eating the fish, he tried to stop his daughter, but was too late, as she had already devoured the fish. Nothing bad seemed to happen to her, so the friend let the matter go. 

Years later, the girl had grown up and married, however she stopped aging, and outlived her husband as he grew old. She continued to appear young and healthy even as she was widowed time after time. The young woman decided then to become a nun and wander through the countries, before returning to her home and ending her life after 800 years.   
Daichi rubbed his face and groaned lightly. 

Why did all these stories seem to have dark themes?

Without realizing it, he had been at the library for hours. Sugawara had fallen asleep on the table, gentle breath even as he rested his head across his arms. 

Daichi could see how he originally mistook him for a woman. His beauty was unparalleled to men he had seen before, and he realized a moment too late that he was admiring the other man’s beauty. 

His face grew hot, and he pointedly looked back down at his pile of books. 

He had only gotten through three, and so far he didn’t find anything that seemed to help him. 

The other two men were still there, but the blond was in much the same state as Sugawara, dozing alongside his companion, who was pouring through books. 

He decided to open up one more book, which talked about various Japanese myths and folklore, but had mentions on the back of _ningyo_.

There were only two sentences written, alongside the same Yao Bikuni story, and reading them gave Daichi a sense of dread. 

“Catching a _ningyo_ is believed to bring storms and misfortune, so fishermen who catch these creatures are warned to throw them back into the sea. A _ningyo_ washed onto the beach is an omen of war or calamity.”

Sugawara was definitely found washed up on the beach. 

Daichi closed the book, and decided that he would be done for the day. He stood up, stretching from his stiffened position, and went to return the books to the return cart so they could be sorted away for later. Sugawara, hearing his chair squeak in the silence as he stood, woke up, stretching and yawning. 

“Excuse me,” a faint whisper said in the silence of the library. “Is that Hans Christain Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’?” 

It was the studious-looking man. 

Daichi nodded and held out the book, and in that moment, noticed an interesting pendant around the man’s neck. 

It was a pearl, fashioned in the exact same nature as Sugawara’s. 

“Excuse me,” he said a bit loudly and insistently, earning a gentle “quiet please” from the librarian. The black-haired man looked at him a bit confused, before Daichi cleared his throat. 

What was he expecting to ask? Anything his brain formulated would sound weird to an actual person. Asking where he got his necklace, or if he knew anything about mermaids, or if he _were_ a mermaid.

“Sorry, nevermind,” he replied, and let the man go. 

The rest of the books that Daichi hadn’t read yet, he brought to the counter so he could check them out. 

This library was old, and small, so instead of a highly-computerized system like they would use in the cities, he still had to write his name on the library card and stick it inside the sleeve in the front of the books. 

“Please return them by next week,” the librarian said, and Daichi nodded, thanking her before walking out of the library. 

He felt a gentle touch on his elbow, and gasped. 

_”Did you learn anything interesting?”_ Sugawara asked, and Daichi sighed, walking towards the station to take them back to their small town. 

“Not really. Just a bunch of stories and folklore,” Daichi responded. Sugawara didn’t say anything after that, and they rode the train in silence. 

As they stepped off, it started to rain, and Daichi cursed at having forgot an umbrella. 

“Hurry, Sugawara,” he said, as he walked quickly to his house. Sugawara, on the other hand, tilted his head to the sky and smiled at the water falling from the heavens. “Sugawara, if you stand out here, you’re going to catch a cold.” 

Sugawara followed Daichi back to the house, and Emiko happily greeted them when they returned. 

Daichi changed out of his wet clothes, and urged Sugawara to do the same, reminding him to change behind a closed door. Sugawara just rolled his eyes at the “human rules”, but did as Daichi instructed. 

Rain continued to fall outside, and Sugawara settled himself by the window to watch it. It was summer, and there was a light mist from rain falling on the hot pavement, cooling it so quickly. Daichi had the day off, and decided to turn on the news, watching it idly as he scratched Emiko behind her ears. 

Daichi was startled from his mindless watching by Sugawara slamming his palms on the window. 

“Be careful, or it’ll break,” Daichi scolded, and Sugawara looked at him with twinkling eyes, pointing to the bushes outside. Daichi walked over and squatted by Sugawara to see what he was looking at, and on the bush outside, there were two or three slugs weaving slimy trails on the leaves. 

“Slugs,” Daichi explained, and Sugawara made a motion as if he was picking it up and eating it. 

He wanted to barf. 

“You’re not going to eat the slugs, Sugawara, that’s gross,” Daichi said, standing up. Sugawara poked his ankle. 

_”I eat them all the time back home,”_ he said and silently laughed at Daichi’s grossed out face. 

“Human’s don’t eat slugs,” Daichi said, sitting back on the couch. Sugawara followed him, and sat closely, resting his hand on the crook of Daichi’s elbow. 

_”Tell me about humans,”_ Sugawara’s voice said in his mind, and Daichi shifted uncomfortably under the touch.

“What do you want to know?” Daichi asked. 

_”What kinds of things do you like to eat?”_

“We eat animals, and seafood, and beans, and rice, and other things that come from the ground. We’ll eat pretty much anything if it won’t kill us, and even then, some people eat things that can kill them or make them sick,” Daichi explained. Sugawara nodded. 

He continued to ask simple questions, about their hair and how they were born, and what happened when they died and what aging looked like. 

When he was satisfied, he removed his hand from Daichi and he felt like he could breathe a little easier. 

He thought back to the books he read earlier, about how _ningyo_ being washed up was a sign of calamity, and he had his own questions to ask. 

“How did you know to come here? To escape the sea witch?”

Sugawara just sighed and leaned into Daichi, letting their arms touch. 

_”It was rumored that the sea witch has less power over the land, but we cannot live on the land as we are, so we have to transform into humans. Though I didn't really think we could transform into a human until I did it.”_ Sugawara explained. 

Daichi looked down at Emiko, who had her head resting in his lap.

“What’s the importance of the necklace?” Daichi asked. 

_”I’m not sure. Some of us say it is our egg, others say it contains out soul, but all of us have one and it is thought to be a curse if you take it off or lose it,”_ Sugawara said, playing with the pink pearl. 

“Why are you fleeing from the sea witch?” 

At that question, Sugawara stayed silent, still toying with the necklace that hung around his neck. 

_”She eats us.”_

The sound of rumbling thunder covered the gasp that Daichi emitted, but he knew Sugawara could feel the intake of breath from where he leaned on him. Before he could ask anymore questions, he heard a knock on his door.

Daichi stood up and opened it, revealing a soaked Bokuto. Emiko walked up to him with her tail wagging, sniffing the neighbor.

“Hey, man, I locked myself out of my house, I was wondering if I could crash while I waited on someone to come unlock it for me,” he explained, and Daichi moved aside to let him come in. 

“Yeah, of course,” he said as the stocky man brushed past him. Once he shut the door, he went to get towels for his neighbor. 

“Sugawara, right? Nice to see you again,” Bokuto greeted as he took off his shoes, and Sugawara smiled at him. Bokuto went to stand in the kitchen, where the floor was linoleum, so he wouldn’t drip on any carpet or hardwood. 

Emiko followed him, and Bokuto lavished her with attention, crouching down so she could sniff him and lick his face. 

Daichi returned with the towel, and Bokuto thanked him, rubbing his hair and face first. The black and white hair that was spiked up fell when Bokuto rubbed it, and it hung loosely by his ears. 

“Thanks, bro!” he said beaming, and sat down in a chair in the kitchen. 

“No problem. Were you at the beach working?” Daichi asked, pulling his kettle down so he could heat up water for tea. Sugawara stood up and watched him work. 

“Yeah, it’s been weird but we’re seeing a lot less fish than we would expect. Last week, everything was fine,” he mused, and Daichi looked at Sugawara, wondering if his appearance had anything to do with it. The timing was too coincidental. 

“Are there normally a lot of fish this time of year?” Daichi asked, sitting down with Bokuto. 

“Oh yeah, and they’re usually going crazy too because it’s mating season,” Bokuto explained, gesticulating with his hands.

Daichi’s gaze slid over to Sugawara. 

“Interesting.”

Bokuto’s stomach growling cut their conversation short. 

“Sorry, I skipped lunch,” Bokuto said sheepishly. 

“Don’t worry about it, I probably have something here,” Daichi said, getting up to inspect his fridge and cabinets. 

He had a lot of canned and boxed things that family members had sent him, that he didn’t know what to do with, and in his fridge he had pre-packaged salmon, milk, and his rice, to keep bugs from getting to it. 

He put on some rice in his rice cooker, and used a soup mix to make miso soup. In a jar, he had pickled plums, so he set those aside as well. 

Bokuto made some futile attempts at conversation with Sugawara, before Daichi piped up. 

“He doesn’t talk much,” he supplied. 

“I can see that,” Bokuto sighed, leaning his chin on his hand. 

When Daichi set the food down, Bokuto looked at it and hummed in contemplation. 

“I don’t mean to be rude when I say this, Sawamura, but you can’t cook can you?”

Being judged correctly for his inadequacy in the kitchen made Daichi scratch his cheek nervously. Bokuto just shook his head. 

“When I get back into my house, I’m cooking you dinner,” Bokuto asked, but began eating his food without any more complaint. 

“I didn’t know you could cook, Bokuto,” Daichi said, and the other man’s gaze narrowed with a sly grin. 

“There’s plenty of things you don’t know about me, Sawamura,” he said, and before Daichi could think too much on it, Sugawara was touching his arm. 

_”I like this man,”_ he said with a small smile. 

It didn’t take too long for a locksmith from the next town over to come unlock Bokuto’s door, and the three moved over to the other man’s house. 

Inside it was tidy, and lightly decorated with traditional Japanese styling. There was a three panel replication of _The Great Wave Off Kanagawa_ , and traditional dark blue lanterns sitting on the end tables. 

Bokuto went to the kitchen and urged them to sit while he prepared dinner for them. 

“You have to go into work tonight, right? I can make something quick,” Bokuto said as he poured rice into his rice cooker. It was common knowledge that Daichi typically took night shifts and Ayane worked during the day. Kousuke would take either shift but less time during the week. 

“Yeah, but I still have a few hours before I start,” Daichi explained, and Sugawara looked concerned. 

Daichi tousled his hair. 

“Relax, I’m only leaving for work, I’ll be back before you wake up,” Daichi said. 

Bokuto took some tuna filets from a bag containing a brown liquid, and put it on the hot pan on the stove. He also began mixing things together and pulled out a tofu block, coating it with powder before dropping it in hot oil. He also began mixing soup in a pot over the stove. 

Dinner was ready quickly, and Bokuto served them rice, homemade miso soup, agedashi tofu, and seared tuna, placing rice seasoning and soy sauce in the middle. 

“Thank you for the food!” Daichi said and Sugawara grabbed his spoon and began digging in. 

“Do you not know how to use chopsticks?” Bokuto asked, watching Sugawara eat rice with a spoon. 

“I tried to teach him, but he is stubborn,” Daichi responded. “This is really good, Bokuto.”

“Right? Come over any time and I’ll cook for you. I always have lots of leftovers so there’s plenty to go around.”

Daichi would have to make a mental note to do just that. And when he got home to order Bokuto a nice bottle of sake or wine. 

The rain didn’t let up as they ate, and instead, got worse, with a whipping wind and lighting streaking the sky every so often. 

Daichi would not like doing his patrols tonight. 

He put the television on cartoons for Sugawara to watch while he was out, and Emiko curled up with the ashen-haired man. 

Daichi locked his door as he headed out into the rain, pulling the hood of his rain jacket closer to his face. 

The station was just a small building that contained their boss’s office, and a desk with a computer. Not much else was needed for a small town, and Daichi went to the log book to sign in for his shift. 

“Good evening, Sawamura!” Ayane said, clapping him on the back. “How’s your house guest?”

“He’s good,” Daichi said. Taking off his rain jacket and trading it for a uniform rain jacket. He grabbed a flashlight and a baton. “How’s your family?”

Ayane shrugged. 

“Kids get a little crazy when they’re cooped up, but the water is good for my hydrangeas,” she said. Daichi smiled. 

“Anything new to report?” he asked. 

“National weather service has asked no boats be out. The storm is supposed to get worse, so make sure that girlfriend and neighbor of yours don’t go scouting tonight,” Ayane said, and at the mention of Michimiya, Daichi realized he hadn’t talked to her all week. 

She would be upset. 

“Thanks, got it,” he said, and she waved goodbye to him before leaving. Daichi locked up and went on his first patrol, trying not to get soaking wet while he did. 

While he walked around, he wondered what Sugawara’s home was like, and how horrible it must’ve been there to leave it behind to come ashore. 

_”She eats us.”_

Daichi shivered. 

Maybe there was some truth to _ningyo_ granting immortality. Maybe that’s why the sea witch was after them. Daichi thought about these conjectures and also about the man at the library. He wore a similar necklace to Sugawara. And while it could be a coincidence, Daichi thought that maybe answers were more attainable than he thought.   
But his next step was to figure out how to stop Sugawara’s nightly transformations back into a mermaid and keep him human for good. Hopefully that would restore his voice. 

Over the week, he learned that Sugawara could make noise with his voice as long as he was in his mermaid form, but Daichi had no hope of understanding the high-pitched keens, whistles, and clicks. 

But in his human form he was mute, and Daichi tried not to linger on the thought of his touch every time he needed to communicate. 

The crash of a trash bin beside him made him jolt, and he shined the flashlight to his right. In the darkness, a raccoon went scurrying away between two houses, and Daichi breathed a sigh of relief. 

As he walked, his train of thought continued back to Sugawara. 

After he became a human for good, then what? He wasn’t registered as a citizen anywhere and had no identity except the one Daichi gave him. He couldn’t get a job, and if he got arrested that would spell huge trouble. 

Daichi groaned. 

He would have to live off-grid, but that wasn’t very possible nowadays. 

And Daichi also thought of the possibility of Sugawara never fully transitioning to a human. Would he keep him forever? There was no way Daichi could keep up that façade.   
He finished up his shift with little to no issue, and where he had hoped the rain would let up by time he was supposed to go home, it hadn’t, and Daichi put on his rain jacket and headed back to the house. 

When he got home, Emiko jumped down from his bed and went to greet him, tail wagging. Unsurprisingly, Sugawara was not on the couch. When Daichi walked into his bedroom, the man was sleeping, cuddled around one of his pillows. 

The stirring in Daichi’s heart was involuntary, and he couldn’t help but think the other man was cute. 

He rubbed his hair, trying to figure out where an idea like that came from. 

Sugawara was a _guy_ , he couldn’t think he was cute!

He walked over to rouse the man from his slumber, despite knowing that as soon as he fell asleep, Sugawara would be back in his bed. In Daichi’s mind, he didn’t want to know what it meant if he didn’t at least _try_ to get Sugawara to sleep by himself. 

“Sugawara, wake up,” Daichi said, and the other stirred lightly, his eyes cracking open. When he saw Daichi, he stretched, but his arms reached out to wrap around Daichi’s neck, drawing his face closer. 

Alarms went of in Daichi’s mind immediately. Sugawara was trying to kiss him! And panic filled his heart as he pulled away with a strength much greater than Sugawara’s own. Despite the fragility of the action, Daichi was panting, face hot as he stared at the waking Sugawara, who just rubbed his eyes blearily. 

“Go sleep on the couch!” he barked, and Emiko cowered. Sugawara stared at him for a moment. “ _Now_!” 

He had the gall to huff with indignation before sliding off the bed in a fluid moment, moving past Daichi to sleep on the couch. 

Daichi closed his door a little more forcefully than he should have, and did something he should’ve done from the get-go. 

He locked his door. 

It was the first night he felt like he got a good night’s rest, but when he woke up alone, something in his heart ached. Daichi pushed away that feeling, not wanting to know what it meant, and when he opened his door, Sugawara fell into his room, pink tail splayed across the floor. 

Daichi would have to feed him another drop of blood and leaned down to wake up the mermaid. 

“Sugawara, it’s morning. Time to wake up,” he said, and Sugawara’s eyes opened. His eyes were reflective and flat, and Sugawara pushed himself up on his arms, tail flicking in what Daichi could tell was annoyance. 

Daichi pricked his finger, as he did every morning since Sugawara arrived, and brought the digit to his mouth, but Sugawara refused to take it. 

“Are you mad at me?” Daichi asked, feeling like Sugawara had no right to be mad since Daichi had taken him into his home and Sugawara was imposing so much. 

A low hum came from Sugawara as his tail flicked again, and his fins on his face fluttered as he turned his head away. 

“You- Do you even realize how stressful this has all been? You show up on my shore and ask me to help you, you can’t talk, you have no identity, and then you climb into my bed every night and have the audacity to try and _kiss_ me, and now _you’re_ mad?!” Daichi asked, his frustration mounting with ever word. 

Sugawara made a clicking noise at the back of his throat and bared his teeth, a high squeal coming from his mouth. 

“I can’t understand you when you talk like that!” Daichi shouted, grabbing Sugawara’s face, and the voice that flooded his mind was still serenely calm despite the emotion on Sugawara’s features. 

_”Then why don’t you just take me back if you hate me so much?”_

Looking at him this closely, his pink tinted skin was red around his cheeks, as tears threatened to fall from his eyes. The irritation inside of Daichi was extinguished, and he knelt down beside Sugawara. 

“I don’t hate you, and I could never do that to you,” Daichi said calmly, and Sugawara cried, low, hollow tones coming from deep in his chest. Daichi took the initiative, and brought Sugawara’s head to his chest, where he could cry against him, and the mermaid wrapped his finned arms around Daichi’s torso, shoulders hitching on every sob. 

While Daichi knew his frustrations were legitimate, he had also been so concerned about himself that he didn’t realize how hard this must be for Sugawara, who left his home and everyone he knew for a lifestyle he had no clue about. Escaping potential death for freedom, and being cut off from communicating with anybody but him, all of it had to be rough on the mermaid, and Daichi wondered if maybe he had been too harsh on him. 

And while Daichi considered his next steps, from the frenzied ocean came a man, naked as he stepped out of the water, with only one mission on his mind. 

To find the deserting mermaid and drag him back to the sea witch.


End file.
